Impasse Continues In School Committee/APEA Negotiations

The Amherst Pelham Education Association (APEA) and the Amherst Regional School Committee had contrasting responses to their latest mediation session held at the district’s offices at the Amherst Regional Middle School on Friday afternoon (3/24). Both sides issued statements reacting to the latest meeting. The school committee, in a memo from Chair Allison McDonald, suggested that considerable progress had been made while at the same time faulting the union for ending the session after five hours of negotiations. The union responded with a statement from its executive committee on March 26, labeling the latest offer “disrespectful” and condemning the school committee for its failure to make a serious effort to resolve the dispute after 15 months. The statements of the school committee and the union are reproduced below.

School Committee Statement
“We would like to provide an update regarding our contract negotiations with the Amherst Pelham Educators Association (APEA), the union that represents teachers, paraeducators, and clerical staff in our three school districts (Amherst elementary, Pelham elementary, and Regional). 

At our meeting today, we made substantial progress in our negotiations and reached multiple tentative agreements. We presented an offer which increased our cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to 2.75% for each of the three years of the contract, added multiple increases for paraeducators including an additional 3.5% increase for those at the top of the pay scale, and a significant reclassification of clerical staff that offers an additional 5-10% increase for our lowest paid clerical staff.

These negotiations have been happening in the midst of very difficult budget planning, and we’ve had to make some really tough decisions. We share the dismay that many are feeling about the impacts on our students. And, our collective dismay is compounded by the tension felt around the unsettled contracts with the APEA. Still, we have to work with the funding we receive, and by law, we must balance our school budgets, as painful or difficult as that may be. Without a significant source of new funding, budgeted pay increases need to be in line with the annual funding increases we receive from the towns.

We value our educators and invest over 80% of our annual budgets on staff salaries and benefits. The compensation packages we offer are among the strongest in our area, and remain competitive under our proposal. 

After five hours of mediation, we were prepared to stay longer and continue to negotiate to reach an agreement; the APEA team declined and chose instead to meet again at a later date.

We’re looking forward to our next mediation session on April 11th and working to reach a fair and sustainable contract.”

APEA Statement
“APEA would like to provide an update regarding our contract negotiations with the School Committee. Our Bargaining Team met from 4:15 pm – 9:30 pm Friday night, after spending a full day working with students.

The School Committee continues to reject our efforts to meet face to face, working through a mediator–who travels from our group location to theirs–relaying information from each party thus delaying the process significantly. In this case, even meeting in the same building, School Committee refused to meet on the same floor, requiring the mediator to go up and down the stairs.

Negotiations started over 15 months ago, with ample opportunities for the School Committee to advocate for adequate funding to make offers that APEA could accept. The offer touted by McDonald in her recent update is substantially below offers made in recently settled agreements throughout the Commonwealth. The district has not been able to retain adequate staffing at the current wages. Each building has had unfilled paraprofessional positions since the beginning of the school year. The district chooses to “jerry rig” these shortfalls through contracted workers, paying them much more than is offered to our members.

School Committee tactics have been to constantly delay the process, hoping that APEA will accept their disrespectful offers, claiming there is no money to compensate educators for the difficult work that they do. They consistently choose to make different decisions about what they value, and it has never been educators.

Thank you to all the members and community partners who came out in force to support educators at Friday’s bargaining session.”